Pinterest is the latest in social media trends.  Don’t feel out of the loop if you just found out about it; viral marketing of the website has just recently begun to hit its stride.  In fact, according to a Wall Street Journal article, unique visitors to Pinterest.com have more than tripled since October 2011, and in January the site generated almost a third of the visitors of Twitter.

So what is Pinterest?  Pinterest is a social photo-sharing site stylized after your mom’s old-fashioned pinboard.  Users can share virtually any picture–and even some videos–on their own pinboard page using Pinterest’s proprietary “Pin It” bookmark button.  Visit any website and hit the “Pin It” button on your bookmark toolbar and you’ll be allowed to select any number of graphics from the site and pin them to your own page, complete with a link directly to the picture’s original site.  From there other users can “re-pin” your pictures to their own pages, and vice versa, increasing relevance on Pinterest and among search engines.

Pinterest is free to users and has been active for roughly a year, and to this point no obvious advertising streams have been employed.  However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t marketing opportunities present.  Online sellers can pin a picture on their page and by simply adding a price in the picture’s description Pinterest will emblazon the picture with a price tag, in a sense creating an online sales platform.  Perhaps even more important is the possibility of creating armies of volunteer marketers armed with the ability to share and exchange hyper-linked pictures of trending products.  Pinterest takes the power of the post to the next level.

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SEO and SEM are the two main methods of getting impression and ranking on Google search.  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which basically means unpaid organic search results for keywords.  Where as SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing, which basically means paid search results for an ad group that will normally have a pay per click (PPC) campaign.

The question is; which one is better?  This is not an easy question to answer because it can depend on your goal and objectives.  If you’re just looking for pure conversions or leads for your business or website then probably SEM is the best way to go.  Even though it is paid search it will increase your chances of having someone click on it because it normally appear at the very top of a Google search result page.  Plus most who click on ads are already looking for product or service related to your website so you increase your chances of having credible leads.

However when it comes to visibility and influence on the web.  There is really nothing better then SEO because it demonstrates and proves your significance and popularity without any paid search.  In other words you could have a paid search that links to a website of company with a lot of money invested into the ad campaigns, that doesn’t necessarily correspond  with that companies organic visibility on the web.  SEO is the only true way to know how interested others are in your website.  So SEO and SEM are both necessary for any successful website but in my opinion SEO is best way to prove and gain true influence on the web

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A clean website design look seems to be growing in popularity.  Consider for a moment Google’s new platform for gmail. It has really evolved in recent months into a very  clean look, that has  given the user a more simpler and easier use of the interface .  Or another example would be Bing’s home page with just an image and a search bar. Even yahoo with its busy home page has made small changes to make it look cleaner and more simplistic.  I believe the reason for this format shift in presentation is two fold: user friendliness and quality.

First, user friendliness.  People today, more than every, are wanting the immediate and instantaneous.  In the real world of course this is rarely possible, but in the web world you can go at the speed of sight, giving the user almost no delay in accessing the information or entertainment they want.  So the clinical clean look of these major websites are perfect for anyone who does not want too waste a second on your site trying figure out how to navigate through it.

Which leads me to the second purpose of this new popular look, and that is quality.  When you see a website with a clean look, it automatically looks more professional.  Think about it, most people have a high regard and trust of medical doctors because of their profession, which  is promoted and perceived as being clean and clinical.  Why is this? The reason I believe is that their job necessitate a clean image because it deals with the care human body, but secondly because it preoccupied with a high quality service that is absolutely vital to health or any society.  The same image concept has been adopted by Google and Bing. Its to ensure the users that we are the best in taking care of all your searches on the web, and that they are in it for the benefit of you the user.  So in other words the clean website design look gives power back to the user or consumer, where they feel the website is there to serve them and their needs and not the other way round.

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Should you add a like button to your website?  This answer is an emphatic yes!  The like button is superior to even a share button.  Reason for this is a share button can only help promote or expose your site content to a wider audience, but it won’t communicate to that audience whether the people like or dislike the content.  Not even Google analytics can tell you what people like and dislike.  It can give you report on how, when, and who is visiting your site but it won’t tell you how many visitors like your website.  For example you could have people visit your site because they don’t like the subject or content of your website, and you would never know.  But now with the integration of like buttons you can find out how many people enjoyed the content of your website.

It will also make your website more engaging and interactive, and therefore keep visitors on site longer.   Plus when visitor clicks on the like button it will have immediate communication with all his or her social connections on facebook, thus creating extra exposure of your website or page to other unique potential visitors!  Finally you have the long term benefit of the like button.  Through accumulative likes you will positively affect your visibility on facebook, especially when someone does a search for your subject, product or service.

We at Smart Link are seeking to develop a greater influence on the web through social media and we believe to add a like button is big piece of this puzzle.  Contact us today to find out more!

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What is back linking and why is it so important in the world of SEO?  First of all, what is a link? A link is url string that is posted somewhere on the web that a user can click on in order to access that designated page.  The reason it’s referred to as link is because it literally links two web pages together, whereby the page remains independent but can serve as a link to another page.  So if you have a back link, you’ll have a hyperlink, that when clicked on will take the user to one of your pages.  In other words the link goes back to your designated page, and is therefore extremely useful for web navigation.  But back linking in terms of SEO can be very useful in generating and creating hyperlinks to your websites from other external pages.  This is sometimes referred to as inbound links or incoming links.  But how does this effect ranking on the major search engines?

Well, Google since its inception has included in their algorithms the back links that point to a particular domain.  The account widely accepted concerning the theory behind Google, is that the founders of Google felt it was important to emphasize the significance of back links to help determine a page relevancy, and hence ranked position on their search results.  The reason why that this is so highly valued these days in search results is that it gives a greater indication of a website’s popularity on the web.

This is no easy task though, so allow us at Smart Link to do the back linking for.  By utilizing our advance knowledge in SEO we can organically create back links to your site through our unique position and influence on the web! Contact us today to find out more!

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Facebook search engine? This seems to be an emerging question for those at the forefront of SEO and social networking.  It seems the answer is yes, and probably within the next couple of years.  Like most social websites Facebook has an internal search tool.  This initially was used just to help people find other people.  But now that facebook has developed into a more all encompassing platform and interface to find just about anything users can stay within Facebook, without the need to navigate off site to get to external site.  Added to this you now have the like button metrics included in the Facebook search algorithm so that it will give results based on personal preferences and social connections you may have.

Google also has seen the significance of social search and last year launched their own social site called Google Plus, seeking to be competitor to Facebook.  The features of Google Plus function in a similar way to that of Facebook.  i.e. Facebook has the like button, Google has the plus 1 button.  This serve as a strong indicator that searches in the future, on these two governing heads of the web world, will be primarily personalized and social in nature.  However Google Plus might struggle to compete with Facebook social influence, and Facebook might struggle to keep up with sophistication of Google algorithms, so who will come out top remains to be seen.  But to the question as to whether facebook will be a search engine in the near future, I believe the answer is definitely yes.

That’s why we at Smart Link believe in providing our clients with both high rankings and social presence, so that you’ll be in right place on the web for when the paradigm shift take place! Ge ready for the Facebook Search engine!

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What is the benefit of using a key phrase when doing a search on google, as opposed to just using a keyword?  For some time now keywords have been the focal point of SEO.  However there is good reason to believe that keywords, in the main, are becoming too competitive and most users are now typing in key phrases as opposed to keywords.  What is this, and why are key phrases now preferred over a keyword when doing a search?

Basically a key phrase will contain more than one word that makes a small sentence or phrase to describe a subject, where a keyword is a single word that concisely defines a subject.  Keywords then are normally too broad in meaning and scope and capture results that are totally irrelevant to your query or search.  For example you could do a search for shades, intending to find results for window shades but instead get results for sunglasses.  But even if your keyword is unique and exclusive in definition and meaning you will still only be getting results that have found a match with that keyword, without any personal preferences considered.

For example if you did a search for cabinets, cabinets can only mean one thing, so you’ll safe guard yourself from irrelevant results, but you then have to sift through the results to find the cabinets you’re specifically looking for.  However if you were do a search with a key phrase you be able limit the search show results to your specified preferences.  i.e. Wooden Kitchen cabinets , or affordable kitchen cabinets.  You could further narrow your search by combining the two key phrases to create what is known as long tail key phrase ‘affordable wooden kitchen cabinets’.

Finally if you’re seeking to look and buy only within a particular area or region you can add what is known as a geo-modifier.  For example your complete key phrase will look something like this: ‘affordable wooden kitchen cabinets in West Palm Beach’.  Your results will still be numerous but you will be able to spend less time looking through websites that do not have what your looking for.

If you’re business and you see the value of key phrases then contact us at Smartlink today and we’ll be happy to advise on how we can make your website SEO friendly so that right key phrases are correctly applied to the content of your web pages, creating higher a potential for conversions!

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Is online website traffic the best way to truly measure your visibility and influence on the web? I would say at the very least website traffic is the best overall metrics available to track the popularity and value of your website on the web.  Even though high ranking organic results is a close second (especially if it allows you to sell links) it still does necessarily mean people are visiting your site and staying on your site.  With traffic analytics you can prove the popularity of your site, and its conversion rate.  What I mean by that is, a site with lots of traffic is easier to monetize because you’ll have the volume of traffic needed to find those users who are seeking to purchase your products and services, or are more likely to click on the ad groups on your site that are selling merchandise related to your website’s subject and theme

Plus if you can get high volumes of traffic through SEO, and not SEM, your ROI is going to greatly increase.  The question now becomes how do you get more visitors to your website through SEO?  Well that’s where we can help. Allow us at Smart Link to do the SEO leg work for you, we will not only track your traffic but also increase it through our online website traffic SEO services.   Contact us today for better way of doing business on the web.

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SEO Strategy is the method and science of generating and creating greater visibility on the web through unpaid organic search results.  It is not discouraged by the major search engine websites, but rather promoted and encouraged.   But just because the door is wide open for SEO that does mean it’s easy to pass through.  If you want your website to fail all you have to do is to go in neutral, and neglect to actively engage your site’s content with the available SEO tools and opportunities.  Even if your website is utilizing the very latest in web design it will not guarantee optimized ranking and visibility, resulting in high volumes of traffic that will lead to conversions.  It will also require the use correctly applied SEO Strategies.

There are basically 4 major logically prioritized building blocks to any SEO Strategy:  Meta Data, Back Linking, Updated Content, and Social media. See below:

1. Meta Data:  This is the text the web crawler will read to identify, in summary form, the content of your website.  This will include key words, the page description, and the title of the page.
2. Back Linking: hyperlinks that allow the user to navigate to your website from another external website
3. Updates: Regular new and fresh SEO friendly content added to your website through site revisions and additions i.e. blog posts
4. Social Media: social and personalized sites for the communication of your content, whether that’s products and services or personal interests and hobbies

These SEO principals are the necessary foundations blocks for any successful SEO Strategy, allowing your website to gain maximum exposure and visibility on the web.  However you will need a SEO specialist to wisely build and construct a SEO friendly website, with ongoing revisions and additions to your website in order to maintain and increase your presence on the web.  Contact us today to find out we can help take your rightly place on the internet!

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What is the value of SEO?  SEO stands for search engine optimization, which in laymen terms means the method and science of getting your website or webpage ranked in highest possible position on the free organic search results in google, yahoo, or bing.  There are others search engines but its really a small percentage in comparison to influence and popularity of google, yahoo and bing.  September statics prove that most searches are done on Google.

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Most people today are looking on the web first for business and entertainment.  More than ever before it is important for any local company to have visibility on the major search engines.  People are no longer using the yellow pages or the phone directories to find people or business, it nearly all now done through the internet.  This is why SEO is of tremendous value.  Think about it for a moment, there are millions of people right now searching for a solution to their problems on the web, with money in hand, ready to spend.  If you have a local business, don’t you want to make yourself immediately visible to all your potential customers by having you’re your website or local business page showing up on the first page of google, yahoo and bing.  If so then you need to strongly consider SEO, it’s the most cost effective way of advertising.  With the potential for the maximum exposure, it can even superseded the more traditional mediums of advertising such as radio, television and newspaper ads. Contacts us today to find out more! Do not underestimated the value of SEO, it might just be the advertising tool that will make your business great!

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